Letters

'Prison of Time,' Logistics of Test

To the Editor:

S. Paul Reville's "Breaking Out of
the 'Prison of Time,'" May 5, 1999, reminds me of Walt Whitman ("Do
I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself ... ").
Although the research is clear about the relationship between time for
learning and how humans convert information to knowledge, the
implementation logistics are fraught with adult-generated problems, as
Mr. Reville pointed out.

Even those schools that use block scheduling have merely shifted
their time element. That is, after 90 or whatever number of minutes,
the kids still move somewhere else to spend more time learning
something else. Longer or different blocks of time may accommodate
those that need different amounts of time for learning, but the premise
of on-task equity among teachers ultimately drives everything.

Even those schools and districts that are successful in overcoming
the "prison of time" with extended periods, days, different pedagogy,
and so on are reshackled by high-stakes testing. Mr. Reville's home
state uses its home-grown Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System, my state of Rhode Island and Vermont use the New Standards
Reference Exam, and so on.

Although these assessments are a significant improvement over the
norm-referenced standardized tests of days of yore, they still are
clock-bound, as are the SAT and numerous other instruments used to
filter kids, rank schools and districts, and determine political
agendas, budgets, and real estate markets. Yet educators agree that
assessment must reflect the learning environment. Go figure.

Value-Added Testing Has Consequences

To the Editor:

It is probably a sign of the uncritical test mania currently
infecting American education that your three-page article on "value
added" testing does not even raise the question of how such a pervasive
assessment program will affect teaching and learning ("Sanders 101," May 5, 1999).

If "value added" requires testing in all grades, then the following
consequences are all too likely:

(1.) The cost of the testing program will increase dramatically. To
keep costs down, a state probably would rely almost entirely on
multiple-choice testing, as is the case with Tennessee. Despite
protestations from its defenders, there is now little serious doubt
that multiple-choice items are poor tools for measuring the ability to
synthesize and evaluate information or apply knowledge to complex
problems--that is, to really think and work in a subject area.

(2.) State tests are inevitably viewed as important, so schools
focus heavily on teaching to those tests. If the tests measure only
relatively lower levels of thinking in a subject area, that is what
will be taught. The result is that many students will not learn to
think and use knowledge, and those students will be predominantly
low-income and of color.

While William L. Sanders' statistical approach does appear to have
some value, testing all students with a norm-referenced,
multiple-choice test that will substantially control curriculum and
instruction is too high an educational price to pay for the information
gained.

Teacher Manifesto's Dangerous Approach

To the Editor:

The "more good teachers" manifesto issued from the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, summarized in this newspaper, and signed by such
conservative luminaries as Jeanne Allen, William J. Bennett, Denis
Doyle, and Diane Ravitch is worse than trivial ("How To Get More of the Teachers We Need,"
May 5, 1999). It and the "value added" approach to teacher evaluation
it advocates are dangerous. Here is a true story that illustrates
why:

During a break at a conference in Colorado, I was chatting with some
teachers about problem-solving. One, a math teacher, recalled a time
when his district's newly hired science teacher had to cancel out at
the last minute. The math teachers scrambled to cover the sciences.
This one took physics. He spent a year in a state of high anxiety,
fretting that he was only a few pages ahead of the kids.

Eight years later, a young man walked into the teacher's classroom
and announced his identity as a member of that fateful physics class.
During the resulting conversation, the young man said that he was about
to obtain a Ph.D. in physics. "In spite of that awful year you had
here, huh?" said the teacher.

"No," replied the young man, "because of that year. You
showed me the process of thinking. You showed me what kinds of
things to try when you don't know what to do. It made physics
intriguing."

Now, that is value-added. It doesn't show up on tests. Paying
attention to the Fordham manifesto will cause it to disappear
altogether.

There are some curious ironies here. Chester E. Finn Jr., who
directs the Fordham Foundation, is on record as opposing large-scale
adoptions of innovations until they are proven. Yet in their manifesto,
he and his colleagues are proposing large-scale adoptions of practices
found nowhere in the world. Another signatory, Ms. Ravitch, has
unfavorably compared education research and practice to that of the
medical profession. ("What if
Research Really Mattered?," Dec. 16, 1998.) The medical profession
is rather stringently regulated, yet Ms. Ravitch apparently sees no
contradiction in calling for the deregulation of teaching.

A dozen years ago, a committee of the National Academy of Education
pointed out that many of "those personal qualities that we hold
dear--resilience and courage in the face of stress, a sense of craft in
our work, a commitment to justice and caring in our social
relationships, a dedication to advancing the public good in our
communal life--are exceedingly difficult to assess. And so,
unfortunately, we are apt to measure what we can, and eventually come
to value what is measured over what is left unmeasured. The shift is
subtle, and occurs gradually."

Clearly, the time has arrived where the shift is neither subtle nor
gradual. All the more reason to resist.

Gerald W. BraceyAlexandria, Va.

Lens of Evolution Can Be Distorting

To the Editor:

In your recent article on the National Academy of Sciences'
statement in support of teaching evolution ("Eminent Science Group Reiterates Importance of
Teaching Evolution," April 28, 1999), you report that evolution has
become a central unifying concept in biology. That may be true, but how
does one test a "unifying concept?" Evolutionary theory has instead
become a lens through which evidence is interpreted. Wear the glasses
that form the boundaries of what is acceptable, and then find evidence
that supports your theory. This is not good science.

Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director of the National Center for
Science Education, is quoted as saying that teachers need to make an
"increased effort to tell what evolution really is," and then fails to
tell us what it really is. Textbook publishers and editors, many of
whom are biologists, often practice glaring omission and illogical
thought when discussing the origins of life. It is not surprising that
most people in the United States still reject evolution as it is
presented in schools.

If one adopts a materialistic view of the world, evolution is the
only conclusion possible. All I have ever seen, however, points to an
incredibly intelligent designer of the universe. The science I have
studied convinces me of the unsatisfactory nature of evolution as the
lone correct interpretation of the data on life. We need to try on a
new pair of lenses. Public school teachers have no business
indoctrinating students in the belief that the lenses used
predominantly by science are the only correct ones. That kind of
determination belongs to the students, their parents, and their
religious or philosophical convictions.

I read with great interest and amazement Robert R. Lange's letter
regarding the grade-retention-vs.-social-promotion debate ("Is Retention Policy a Form of Abuse?,"
May 5, 1999). Am I now to understand that holding students academically
accountable is a new form of abuse? What are the facts that we are
ignoring or are in the dark about? I think it is time to back the
educational truck up and ask a few fundamental questions about our
schools and temper our mission statements accordingly.

When all is said and done, what is the basic purpose of education in
our schools? Is it designed to solve social, psychological,
environmental, political, gender, home, peer, race, ethnic, and
religious problems, or to provide an academic environment in which the
student learns and retains information and skills?

Who should make critical decisions for schools: politicians,
business leaders, education professors, or those trained in the
discipline who work on the front lines daily?

I don't know what schools Mr. Lange is referring to, but in my 20
years of education, teaching at all levels, I have yet to see a school
that can offer each and every student his or her own private curriculum
and pace of learning. While it would be nice to have an education
"tailored and fitted" according to each individual's needs, it is
clearly impractical and economically impossible in nearly every
district in the nation. Mr. Lange suggests that a student can succeed
only when in the same group as others his age. While that is a
politically correct statement, it lacks support and sound
implementation and ignores the reality of our schools at present.

Mr. Lange uses the terms "abuse" and "torture" in discussing our
present educational system and suggests that each student should be
educated in his or her own unique way. He then violates his own
educational philosophy by suggesting that social promotion is the only
answer for all failing students and is a cure-all that will fit all
students' unique and individual educational needs.

I, too, would like to see one-to-one student-teacher ratios but we
know this will not occur anytime soon. It is time to make teachers
and students accountable for learning, and when they fail the
task, move in a different direction and start over. As Carl Rogers
said, "True learning is painful," and any psychologist worth his or her
salt knows that more is learned in failure than in the current comfort
zone of education.

Maybe it's time that education professors remove themselves from a
comfortable and secure higher education environment and teach at the
elementary and secondary levels for a few years before suggesting that
the rest of us are ignoring the textbook and educational "facts."

James GardnerDivision Chair for the Social Sciences
Ozarks Technical Community College
Springfield, Mo.

Out-of-Field Data and Terminology

The matter of out-of-field teaching is typically defined through the
use of terminology referring to college "major or minor" as the common
denominator. The use of this framework as the base reference point for
building a national argument concerning the preparedness of
professional educators bears more examination.

Each state has developed its own system of defining the preparation,
certification, and career expectations for its professional education
community, based on the philosophical and societal values of its
citizens. Subsequently, common definitions become difficult to apply
across the board.

Missouri's precertification requirements stipulate that all
candidates must complete a state-approved teacher-preparation program.
Within the postbaccalaureate certification process, teachers may apply
directly to fulfill state board of education requirements based on
obtaining the coursework from a state-approved teacher-preparation
program. The Missouri common-minimum-standard coursework requirement is
30 semester hours for a specialty area of concentration and 21 semester
hours for limited endorsements, requiring a content-specialty area as a
prerequisite. These requirements are comparable to the minimum
responding specialty-area requirements within the preparatory
institutions.

The absence of a common standardized terminology using easily
understood parameters severely hinders the interpretation of quality
preparatory standards for teachers. Subsequently, each state's
certification authority must develop its own interpretation of the
candidate's qualifications based on the data it has available to
it.

Missouri's flexible approach to postbaccalaureate certification
attends to the diverse requirements of our state's professional
education community. The prospective candidate for postbaccalaureate
certification may address approved state board of education standards
by obtaining the appropriate coursework from any state-approved teacher
education institution within the United States.

The professional preparation of our state, as well as the national
teaching cohort, is of vital interest to Missouri. We applaud your
efforts to bring the discussion of this issue forward. It is the
challenge of all educators to provide the highest level of academic
preparation for our teachers and instruction for our students.

The shootings at Columbine High School cause us all to search for
meaning where there really is none. Our psychological need for closure
and logical order impels us to try to make sense out of the senseless
and to attempt to rationalize the irrational. When we seek to go beyond
the perpetrators to find causation for their horrific acts, what we are
really trying to do is to understand how these things could possibly
happen. Human nature requires that we try to explain the inexplicable,
and through that explanation perhaps regain the security of
predictability and the hope of future prevention.

If we must search for some comprehensible truth amid these traumas
and tragedy, we would perhaps be best served by reference to "Occam's
razor," the 14th-century philosophical principle posited by William of
Occam (also known as Ockham), which states that "terms, concepts, and
assumptions must not be multiplied beyond necessity." What Occam was
suggesting is that the best answer to complex questions is often the
simplest. The simple truth is that there can be unspeakably evil acts
in all parts of society. And as difficult as it is to accept, there is
ample and incontrovertible evidence that the propensity to do evil can
be fully developed even in the young and immature. It is important to
point out that in almost all cases this evilness is not a manifestation
of madness, but rather, simply a conscious choice by the involved
perpetrators.

The eminent psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in his attacks against what
he called the "Therapeutic State," pointed out that "psychiatrists and
other behavioral scientists continue to pour out an uninterrupted
stream of articles and books allegedly demonstrating that man has no
free will. By debunking free will and responsibility ... they also try
to endear themselves to politicians and the public by promising to
control crime."

It is we, urged on by the proponents of the Therapeutic State, who
have created the need to shroud simple, untreatable evil acts in the
complex cloak of mental illness or insanity because such labeling gets
us back to the "logic" of causation and/or the potential for control.
Unfortunately, by debunking free will and responsibility, we also
provide those who do the evil the opportunity to avoid full
responsibility for their acts.

Accepting the simple truth that there are people, young and old, who
choose to do evil does not mean that the purveyors of society's filth
and violence, the inane laws that allow children to easily obtain
weapons of war, and the uninterested and dismissive practices of some
parents should escape our condemnation. Indeed, it is likely that such
cultural artifacts do play their individual and collective parts in
exacerbating or making easier certain types of antisocial behavior.

But it is rare when such external influences overwhelm and dictate
the choices that each individual ultimately must make regarding his or
her own behavior. Dr. Szasz argues that, absent any provable physical
damage or organic disease of the brain, there is no logical basis for
accepting any claim of mental illness or insanity.

By placing responsibility for abhorrent behavior outside the control
of the involved individual, we tend to excuse the inexcusable. And when
we lament the fact that at Columbine, like high schools everywhere, the
social cliques of adolescence can often result in hurtful practices of
taunting, labeling, and ostracizing outsiders, we come dangerously
close to showing empathy for the murderers by casting them as the
victims of such practices. Already there are adults and adolescents
wringing their hands and suggesting that they can "understand" what the
killers "went through" and that they "feel sorry" for them.

Let us be very clear on this: These perpetrators were not victims.
They were not conditioned or forced by any feature of our culture, or
their treatment by others, or their family environments to commit the
acts that they did. Rather, they were nothing more than cruel,
merciless killers who chose to do their self-absorbed evil without
regard for anyone but themselves.

The very first thing we can do to reduce the probability of anything
similar to this occurring again is that whenever there are attempts to
excuse, explain, or somehow externalize these obscene acts beyond the
responsibility of the killers, these attempts should be immediately
repudiated by reminders of the innocent victims and the countless loved
ones from whom they were torn. And such reminders must always include
the simple truth about the killers: They, and they alone, created their
evil.

Best and Brightest Are Not Wanted

To the Editor:

Gary R. Galluzzo's Commentary "Will the Best and the Brightest Teach?,"
May 5, 1999, produced interesting reading. He touched on the types of
teachers we need and the failures of schools of education, but he
avoided two other extremely relevant issues school districts consider
when hiring.

The first is political. Districts often fill vacancies based on
candidates who know someone who knows someone. This type of politics is
a fact of life everywhere. A second form of politics can be based on
belief systems. If someone doesn't adhere to the common and assumed
"given" theories of teaching and learning, that person is judged not
suitable for the school system. Belief in the "correct" school or
classroom process is awarded far greater weight than product: student
learning.

A second consideration is financial. Districts will hire a person
straight out of college with a bachelor's degree before hiring a person
with years of experience. Applications for these recent or pending
college graduates are held for months, and contracts eventually are
offered. Individuals with graduate degrees, experience, and the
expertise that only a combination of college work and experience can
develop are not wanted because they are considered "budget busters."
Their applications are placed "on file" in case any position
develops.

Mr. Galluzzo is on the mark when he describes the desired teacher as
one who seeks to be autonomous and creative. Administrators in the
private sector who are successful generally hire those who will make
them look good. Workers who produce, regardless of their style, are
rewarded. Administrators in public education generally hire those who
believe the "right things" and do not cost much. The ability to teach
or administer is not the primary consideration.

In too many instances, the best and brightest will not teach. But
this is not because the best and brightest are not selected at the
college level. It is because they are not wanted.